Luggage was not loaded onto plane on our way home...used RAC at Disney

Claudia1

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Aug 18, 1999
We used RAC at All Star Music 9 hours prior to our non-stop flight. When we arrived in Indy on our Delta flight, there were 5 families who also used RAC at Disney Resorts that didn't get their luggage, either. Delta said it was still in Orlando and "not loaded onto the plane".

We all talked and thought that was very strange. We will never know who's fault it was but we won't get our luggage for at least a day. Everybody else on our flight got their luggage except those of us that used RAC. We all stayed at different resorts.... the Poly, Coronado Springs, All Stars, and even the cruise line.

A word of warning to everyone: keep your baggage claim tickets and DO NOT pack anything in your checked bags that you can't live without.
 
This is always great advice. Thank you.
Hope you received your luggage soon.
 
Happened to us once a few years aback on Southwest.
Southwest blamed us and Disney.
Disney blamed Southwest.
I get the feeling it was Southwest's issue.
They put it on the next flight and we got it the next day.
 


RAC is a service provided by BAGS, that Disney uses. So, who is at fault here? Who knows. But the buck tends to stop at the Disney counter! They are providing the service, therefor they need to make sure it doesn't happen again. I wonder if all the people that didn't get their bags, checked their bags around the same time. That would mean that one truck had an issue. I can't believe it happened to several trucks. More like one truck just didn't deliver bags.
 
How did you get your bags? Some people live quite a distance from the airport.
 


RAC is a service provided by BAGS, that Disney uses. So, who is at fault here? Who knows. But the buck tends to stop at the Disney counter! They are providing the service, therefor they need to make sure it doesn't happen again. I wonder if all the people that didn't get their bags, checked their bags around the same time. That would mean that one truck had an issue. I can't believe it happened to several trucks. More like one truck just didn't deliver bags.

Yes, we all checked in around the same time. We had quite the conversation about our timelines and what could have possibly happened.

They gave us the info to track our luggage but it is not in the system yet...... 12 hours later. DH and I really want our CPAP machines for tonight. Everything else that was important was in our carry ons, so I'm just dealing with the lack of hair care electronics and bags & bags of MNSSHP candy this morning. I can live without he dirty laundry, ponchos, and all else for a day or so...... but I want the candy!
 
One nice thing about Delta is if you use their app, you get a message on your phone that your luggage was loaded onto the plane. I flew them PIT-DTW-LAX in July, I got the message that my bag was loaded before they even started boarding in DTW. I worry about short connections but that was a stress reliever.

My bet is because you checked your luggage so early is they placed it somewhere at the airport and didn't pick it back up to put on the plane.
 
This makes me curious on the process after you check your bag at RAC. Does it hang around somewhere at a Disney resort until shortly before your flight, and then sent over to the airport? Do they run all the bags to the airport at one time after the RAC counter closes? Does the airline have a designated holding area for bags that come in from Disney RAC and they pull from there for each flight? I have to assume the bags were with the airline for at least a couple hours, and then someone forgot to put them on your plane or else they were put in the wrong place - perhaps by the RAC person dropping them off. Just curious how it works now!
 
This makes me curious on the process after you check your bag at RAC. Does it hang around somewhere at a Disney resort until shortly before your flight, and then sent over to the airport? Do they run all the bags to the airport at one time after the RAC counter closes? Does the airline have a designated holding area for bags that come in from Disney RAC and they pull from there for each flight? I have to assume the bags were with the airline for at least a couple hours, and then someone forgot to put them on your plane or else they were put in the wrong place - perhaps by the RAC person dropping them off. Just curious how it works now!

Me, too!
 
Airlines don't want bags hours before your flight. MCO doesn't want the bags too early. MCO baggage area is very space limited.

Check bags early RAC holds the bags in the resort. RAC bags go to a hanger/warehouse on airport grounds. They are screened then inserted into the main airport building close to flight time. Sometimes bags don't go out in time.

MCO luggage is so space limited BAGs got a contract to check bags at the garage, to be screened in RAC facility.
 
This makes me curious on the process after you check your bag at RAC. Does it hang around somewhere at a Disney resort until shortly before your flight, and then sent over to the airport? Do they run all the bags to the airport at one time after the RAC counter closes? Does the airline have a designated holding area for bags that come in from Disney RAC and they pull from there for each flight? I have to assume the bags were with the airline for at least a couple hours, and then someone forgot to put them on your plane or else they were put in the wrong place - perhaps by the RAC person dropping them off. Just curious how it works now!

They do not hold them and run all the bags at one time after the RAC desk closes. If they did there would be an awful lot of delayed bags as people with say a 9a flight would not get theie bags sent to MCO until after 12p.

Last time at Fort Wilderness there were packing bags on a truck just before 11a we saw our bags go on and the truck left with our luggage. Our bus showed up at 11 for our flight around 2p and off we went. On the way to MCO we passed 2 trucks with luggage on them.

So my guess would be is that they have trucks scheduled probably similar to the buses or at a set time like every 30 min or every hour. They probably make more then one resort too and then they go to the airport. I would imagine they arrive at MCO around the same time you do if you have a flight during their operating hours.
 
I wonder if all the people that didn't get their bags, checked their bags around the same time.
Strange, though, that they were each at such disparate resorts. I'd tend to agree with the poster who suggested it was all at the airport hours before flight departure and just didn't get loaded on the plane.
Yes. I live over an hour from the airport and the airline contracts a service to deliver the bag.
There was a Law & Order: SVU episode about that...
This makes me curious on the process after you check your bag at RAC. Does it hang around somewhere at a Disney resort until shortly before your flight, and then sent over to the airport?
Unlikely. Many, many guests fly out before RAC closes.
 
RAC (BAGs) has trucks with luggage running all day long between MCO and WDW. After all, they have to move the incoming luggage that is collected at MCO to the appropriate resort, offload the truck at multiple resorts, and then fill the truck with luggage going from WDW resorts to MCO. I’ve observed the unloading and loading process (and heard it) from standard view rooms at the Boardwalk Villas that overlook the RAC station near the BW entrance. Bags from a particular party are placed in a locked metal wire frame rolling cage that can be loaded onto the trucks that transport the luggage. Each cage has an upper and lower section, so two sets of luggage can be carried when space permits and both sets are heading to the same airline from the resort. I suspect that the BAGs people do some pre-sorting to arrange it so the cages going to the same airline are loaded onto the truck together. Sometimes, the resort ends up with an excess of empty cages. These get loaded onto the truck as well, particularly in the afternoon after they stop accepting airport bound luggage. Luggage continues to arrive well into the evening, and the empty cages need to go back to the airport for the next day so the process can repeat, and repeat, and repeat.
 
How did you get your bags? Some people live quite a distance from the airport.
The 1 and only time so far (knock on wood) that we haven't had our luggage on the plane with us it was because of the furloughs back in 2013. Our flight was late getting into St. Lucia (where we were honeymooning) and since that was the only plane getting us out it delayed us leaving which delayed us getting our connecting flight in Atlanta (which was the last flight back home that day). We barely made it on the plane (the jetway door had closed but not the airplane door). Our luggage however didn't have time to get onto the plane.

We were flying Delta. Delta got our luggage on the next available flight and by lunchtime the next day our luggage was delivered to our door (45mins away from the airport) though I forget who was the carrier (i.e. UPS, FEDEX, USPS, etc). My guess is in general this is how airlines operate still meaning they deliver your luggage to you in the event it didn't make it onto your actual flight. But it is best to check with your specific airline for those types of terms.
 
I've only had one bag delayed, and that was due to major computer issues at the foreign airport from which I was departing. Nobody's luggage went anywhere from what I heard afterwards, but Delta delivered my bag to my door via a courier service.
 

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